DeBartolo Puts Some Friendly Faces on Corporation Board

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 14, 1999

1999-04-14 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- Exiled 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo finally succeeded yesterday in putting two of his loyalists on the board that oversees the 49ers, a move that adds a whole new dimension to the wrestling match between him and his estranged sister, Denise DeBartolo York.

During a family board meeting in Youngstown, Ohio, DeBartolo named his oldest daughter, Tiffanie DeBartolo, and his longtime confidant (some say Rasputin) Ed Muransky to represent him on the DeBartolo Corp. board.

If nothing else, Muransky's election is a poke in the eye to all the National Football League owners who nixed Eddie's desire to name Muransky as interim general manager of the 49ers.

But former 49ers campaign manager and mayoral adviser Jack "Daniels" Davis called the appointments a shrewd strategy: "One could kill you with sweetness, and the other with head butts."

Davis was referring to the head butt that former L.A. Raider Muransky gave to a Green Bay Packer fan who got in a tussle with DeBartolo a few years back.

Eddie has been pretty much out of the corporate picture since getting caught up in a gaming license scandal in Louisiana more than a year ago.

Under a federal plea agreement, Eddie is now a convicted felon, and bank loans to the DeBartolo Corp. preclude felons from serving on the organization's board of directors.

As a result, he's had to sit on the sidelines while sister Denise -- who wants to sever all financial ties with her brother -- puts the squeeze on him.

And what a squeeze it has been.

In the past year, she's seized his private jet, cut him off from the team's finances and last week filed a lawsuit demanding that Eddie repay the $94 million he has borrowed from the corporation in recent years.

All of which has Eddie itching to reassert some measure of control -- if not directly with the 49ers, then at least on the board that oversees the team.

That's where Eddie's designated reps come in.

Legally, Muransky and Tiffanie DeBartolo will give Eddie an equal voice over how the corporation is run.

Eddie & Co. insist that it does. They say that the new reps will make any move -- be it a sale of the team or a new stadium -- impossible without Eddie's OK.

On the other hand, Denise & Co. say that even with Eddie's new players, the best he can hope for is a 2-to-2 split on the four-member board -- and that as the chief executive officer, Denise will still be calling the shots.

One thing everyone agrees on is this: If the two sides can't reach an agreement, the dispute will end up in the courts. And that could result in the whole company being dissolved and the 49ers being sold.

It's a slippery slope that neither side seems to want to be on right now but may have little hope of avoiding.

SNOOP SNOOP: Nothing concrete yet, but the FBI is looking into how the San Francisco Human Rights Commission certifies minority contractors.

And the feds seem to have a particular interest in a contract for that hotly contested $116 million people mover at San Francisco International.

There's a union beef on file in which a fired secretary alleges a senior contract compliance officer ordered her to back-date a minority certification request for the contractor who won a piece of the big contract.

It also happens that the contractor, Jim Jefferson, is a family friend of the compliance officer who allegedly ordered the letter to be back-dated.

According to a union grievance filed last March, compliance officer Zula Jones ordered her secretary, Donna Rice Mason, to come in on a Saturday, open the dating machine, roll back the date and restamp Jefferson's letter, in which he requested recertification as a minority contractor.

Jones was allegedly worried that the press would discover that Jefferson had gotten recertified before he had sent in his letter asking for it.

Jefferson denies that he did anything wrong.

Yesterday, a livid Jones told us that the back-dating charge was total "B.S. . . . bordering on libel."

Jones says the whole thing is being stirred up by the disgruntled worker, her disgruntled union representative and former Human Rights Commission President Comer Marshall, who is disgruntled after being dumped by Mayor Willie Brown.

Just as interesting in this whole matter is how the city reacted -- or didn't react -- once the charge came to light.

According to union representative Harry Baker, the two agencies assigned to investigate the grievance never talked to the secretary about the alleged back-dating.

Human Resources didn't ask about it because all it was interested in was whether the secretary in question had been sexually harassed or discriminated against, as alleged in her grievance.

"They considered the back-dating a nonissue," Baker said.

As for the city attorney's office investigation, Baker said, "that went nowhere because they refused to give (the secretary) immunity."

The city attorney can't comment on any of this because it was handed to them as a personnel matter. But as chief assistant city attorney Dennis Aftergut told us, "As a rule, we can't grant immunity -- we're not prosecutors."

Unhappy with the outcome, the secretary and two other women then went public in front of the entire Human Rights Commission, prompting the commissioners to ask for a full report.

Four months later, they are still waiting.

Now it's the FBI's turn -- in an election year, no less. So no matter what the final outcome, that's not good for the mayor.

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